Free-to-play Call of Duty Online announced for China

Activision has announced today that Call of Duty: Online has been in development for the past two years and is going to be released exclusively for the Chinese market.

Unlike previous Call of Duty titles, Activision Blizzard has created a free-to-play game that will generate revenue solely from the sale of in-game items. The game will be run within China by Tencent–a company already well established and experienced at running online games.

Focusing totally on a multiplayer experience, the game will be highly customizable in order to offer the widest possible range of items players can purchase. Customization options will include weapons, equipment, the look of your characters, and a range of perks that have yet to be detailed.

As for content, it looks as though the development team has raided the archives of everything produced for multiplayer games in the Modern Warfare series so far. That means all the multiplayer maps and game modes you have played will likely turn up as part of the Call of Duty Online experience in some graphically modified form.

It’s unlikely the exclusivity to the Chinese market will ever end as Activision makes far too much money from sales of the Call of Duty games in western markets to even consider making the switch. The publisher has also generated regular healthy profits from subscriptions to the relatively new Call of Duty Elite service.

Releasing a free-to-play game in China makes a lot of sense. Chinese gamers have a lot of experience with the free-to-play model, plus it sidesteps the issue of piracy which is a major problem for publishers releasing games in the region.